Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Fluffeh writes "Apple and Samsung just can't come to an agreement, even when the two CEOs have been ordered by a court to hash it out over a two-day period. U.S. Judge Judy Koh had ordered the sit down prior to court proceedings between the two giants, but the talks resulted in nothing more than each side confirming its position. Although Apple CEO Tim Cook said, 'I've always hated litigation and I continue to hate it,' he also said, 'if we could get to some kind of arrangement where we'd be assured [they are inventing their own products] and get a fair settlement on the stuff that's occurred.' Perhaps Tim is worried that Samsung is still the primary component supplier for mobile products, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, or perhaps Apple has bitten off more than it really wants to chew, with the litigation between the two getting to truly epic and global proportions."

It's like when we were kids and my sister and I would fight. My mom would tell us to "settle it yourselves, or I'm going to settle it for you!" Mom always ended up having to settle it because each of us knew we were right and refused to find middle ground.

Of course, looking back - I was the one who was right, and my sister was wrong.

Because Samsung's patents are FRAND, and by taking it away, it means everyone who implements a cellphone (ANY cellphone) no longer has to negotiate with Samsung on those patents.

Apple's patents are design dress patents, which have a much shorter life (5 years), and really cover a specific design of product. If you wonder why companies periodically change the design of long-running products, it's usually because their design patents are about to expire, and the design isn't iconic enough to apply for a trademark (e.g., the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle IS trademarked, and it's why only Coke comes in those bottle designs).

Of course, the two sides can never come to an agreement - Apple knows Samsung's patents are FRAND, and since they're essential to implement a cellphone, believes they already got a license through purchase of Qualcomm chips. (Basically, Apple buys chips from Qualcomm, of which part of the price of those chips is used to pay for the patents paid to Samsung etc.). Samsung believes Apple should still pay, akin to the recording/videogame industry saying if you buy a CD/game secondhand, you still owe them money. Whether or not that is true, is up to bunch of agreements between Samsung, Qualcomm and Apple.

Apple's beef with Samsung is the design of their tablets, and Samsung believes they're distinct enough ("we don't let lawyers design our products"). Since it's not an FRAND issue, Apple values part of the whole Apple Experience(tm) is the product design and thus values it highly.

And it's also why Apple's push for nano-sim will never succeed. Even if Apple gives away patent licenses to anyone who asks for whatever terms they want. Nokia and RIM are opposing Apple purely because if Apple gets a patent into the FRAND pool, it means Apple pays a lot less money to them for their FRAND patents. Apple's got the money and everyone wants some of it, and they definitely do not want Apple getting their patents into the standard at all. Even if Apple's implementation is techically superior to Nokia and RIM's design - they will vote for an inferior standard in order to keep the Apple goldmine coming.

Because Samsung's patents are FRAND, and by taking it away, it means everyone who implements a cellphone (ANY cellphone) no longer has to negotiate with Samsung on those patents.

The fact that the patents are FRAND patents means there should be zero negotiations involved in licensing the patents. It should simply be "the price we charge everyone is x% - that's your price too." Done. That's it. That's the point of a FRAND patent. That is Fair, Reasonable, And Non Discriminatory - FRAND. Any attempt to negotiate a different rate with different companies is the exact opposite of FRAND terms,

And that's why Samsung is in the wrong - they are attempting to get more from Apple than they do from other companies. That is not Fair, Reasonable, and certainly not Non Discriminatory.

Not a lawyer here, but isn't that WHEN the rate is offered, you can't charge crazy amounts? Is there something that FORCES you to sell to your competitor?ie, to stop FRAND applying, simple telling Apple 'sorry, we don't want you as a customer for our patents' is the thing the sammy lawyers are arguing here?

Yes. Non Discriminatory. Anyone offering a FRAND patent (typically a patent that has been accepted into an industry standard) _MUST_ license the patent to anyone and everyone who is interested in licensing it at a Fair and Reasonable rate. Almost always this means that the license rate is lower than a non-FRAND patent would garner but the idea is that you make up the money due to the fact that everyone who wants to participate in that industry standard must license from you - you make it up in volume. But, yes, they MUST license to anyone and everyone, even if they don't want to.

FRAND patents don't work that way. There is not x% that everybody pays. Most FRAND licensing deals in this space involve small cash payments, but the bulk of the value is patent cross-licensing. This is the same issue between Apple and Motorola, as well as Apple and Nokia (that Apple settled for above FRAND payment rates, but no cross-licensing).

Apple is arguing that they should get the same rates as everybody else despite no patent cross-licensing deals. Samsung, Motorola, and Nokia think Apple should

Samsung licensed the patents to Qualcomm who sold the chips to Apple. Apple is arguing that Samsung is attempting to double-dip - Apple already paid the license fee by purchasing the chips from a company who paid Samsung for the license.

Yeah right. Those patents are, indirectly, the judge's source of income, or at least his raison d'etre.

That's silly... like arguing that a criminal judge shouldn't put away criminals or only give them minimal sentences because adjudicating criminal cases is "the judge's source of income", and the more crime there is, the better...

there is PLENTY of patent law cases and IP cases to have to deal with, so no need to bend over to help out software patent trolls just to keep "business"/income flowing...

What the judge needs to do is issue a global injunction to both companies preventing them from shipping any tablets until the entire legal process is finished, including any appeals. That'd get them both talking real quick.

Commercial cases like this between big companies is exactly what the law is supposed to do. When negotiation breaks down, the next level is litigation in which a third party (judge) assesses the case based on expert interpretation of the evidence. In non-civilised societies that next level doesn't exist and commercial disputes are dealt with with weapons. Recourse to the law is a sign that at least one party is unreasonable, but it is better than the alternative.

My mother used to decide who was right and compel the other to backdate royalty payments then give a percentage of any future sales. If we still didn't agree, we could appeal to a superior parent - Grandma.

In any normal case, that would be true. But as Samsung is the major (still only?) supplier of screens for the iPad3, the relationship is more complicated. Tim Cook isn't taking his current position because he really hates lawsuits. He's taking it because he figures that even if Apple wins the legal battles against Samsung outright, it could still end up a Pyrrhic victory.

If Samsung was so stupid as to cut off their largest customer, that would truly be cutting off their nose to spite their face. Samsung has a bottom line to watch out for as well and the billions of dollars that Apple directs their way is a significant portion of Samsung's balance sheet. No sane company is going to throw that away out of spite.

I'd love to see Samsung try to just cut that contract... They'd lose a fuck of a lot more than 8billion.

This sort of drivel is just dripping with ignorance. Apple has contracts with Samsung; if those contracts aren't renewed in a timely manner, Apple will ramp up production with a new supplier and samsung will be the only one that loses.

Interesting, where exactly will Apple go? Apple put out the requirements for the iPad3 ("retina") display. Only one company in the world was able to meet their quality requirements, Samsung. Why do you think that all the first run of iPad3's will have Samsung displays?

I would consider the Apple insider a pro-Apple publication and they claim that LG is not making displays for Apple at this time because they haven't been able to meet Apple's quality standards. The only higher density display that has been proven (because someone actually took the device apart) is Samsung (link attached).

Samsung and LG are fierce competitors, but LG is only about a fifth the size of Samsung in terms of revenue and LG actually lost money last year, compared to the more than $20 billion in profits for Samsung. Samsung i

You would think they would be happy, with regard to the design patent suits, particularly given Jonathon Ive's statement about Apple's designs:“We try to develop products that seem somehow inevitable. That leave you with the sense that that’s the only possible solution that makes sense,” he explains.iMore [imore.com] Since that appears to be working they are now complaining about it, as though it's a case of we did it "right", and we did it right "first" so now everyone else must continue to do it

If everything went absolutely against Apple in all cases (not likely but just saying) they could wind up with a ton of money but nothing to do and no easy ability to make more. I mean if Apple had a situation where their products were ruled to be violating other companies' patents, and other companies wouldn't license them, plus suppliers stopped working with Apple (Samsung is a big supplier of parts like their screens) they would have a situation of nothing to sell.

Money doesn't solve that. In the long run it could solve a supplier issue as they could build their own production lines, but that takes quite a bit of time and still wouldn't solve patent issues. If the patents are fairly trivial, sure they could work around them, however if they are more fundamental to mobile phone operation or the like they might be fucked.

I don't see that as likely but don't make the mistake of thinking that lots of money can solve the problem. Apple is likely going to have to learn to play nice with others.

Samsung can answer the question "You and what army of killer robots". Apple can answer the question "You and what army of hipsters who are to worried about their lattes to ever make a stand for anything". I know which one I would be more afraid to anger.

People forget that Samsung is an old fashioned giant, it may not have as much cash but it has business in nearly everything under the sun. Anything from ships to military to the chips that Apple so desperately needs. Samsung could loose all its mobile income tomorrow and it easily survive on everything else with full backing of the Korean government and its US military customers. Apple would be bankrupt and torn to shreds by its share holders and nobody has any incentive to keep it going. The world needs Samsung as a supplier, Apple? Nah.

It is what happens when you outsource all your actual production, just in time delivery sounds nice, but it means your suppliers own you once they realize this themselves. GOOD just in time delivery makes certain that you have a choice of suppliers and that none of them can survive without your business. Samsung can EASILY survive without and in fact, if they stop shipping to Apple, they kill a major competitor to their own products.

And if you think Apple can just go to someone else... they are all asian giants to. All of who would be perfectly happy to see Apple die and take over its business.

A lot of business stability exists because the status quo is just easier to keep. But Apple upset that, when you stir the calm waters, the sharks surface.

They are the people you call "boss", and they are where your paycheckcomes from. And they are in a higher position than you are preciselybecause they DID give a shit and learned how to communicate well.

Literate people give a shit, because that kind of ignorance slows reading speed and hampers communication. Plus, stupid mistakes like that make you look like you have Down's syndrome. Literate people expect professionals (as the editors are, since they're paid) to be able to know when and when not to use an apostrophe.

My cat is really stupid. She moves her lips when she reads! I doubt she gives a shit, but I do.

there is this thing called 'thingiverse', and another thing called 'grabcad', and another thing called 'shapeways', they are your death knell.

what you do is not hard. its not difficult. its not even that special. volunteers on the internet can do what you do, and they can do it better, and they can do it for free. the only thing you have is hordes of factory wage slaves who live under a dictatorship. that can do alot, but it can only do so much for your bottom line.

what you do is not hard. its not difficult. its not even that special.

Actually, that is AMAZINGLY untrue. What Apple and Samsung both do is make products that have many, many finely crafted parts, between both software and hardware. I would say in fact that BOTH companies are special, the products they are producing are light years ahead of what open source hardware designs could produce, and even the software is polished well beyond what open source is capable of.

>humans should be shining like the amazing end result of evolution that they are.

I was with you up until that sentence. Evolution does not have a direction or an end result. Considering how rare our kind of intelligence is, it's not even clear that it has lasting evolutionary value and long after we are gone bacteria will continue doing its thing.

Of course evolution has a direction. It is always optimizing for conditions, and humans ended up being the creatures that could fit in any niche. Once that optimization was found, game over basically.

Some people want humans to be no better than other animals but plainly that is false due to the success humanity has enjoyed across the globe. You cannot undo that. No other species could even evolve at this point to take our position unless we let them o

Our success is due to the exploitation of resources. If those resources fail, game up. The human race very nearly went extinct in the Mesolithic. Don't think it could not happen again.

No other species could even evolve at this point

Except that it wouldn't be at this point, and it doesn't have to be a single species. Evolution presumes the passage of time. Already bacteria are evolving that are resistant to all our known antibiotics. And as Jay Gould observed, from the point of view of life on Earth as a wh

I know I shouldn't reply to myself. But my sig actually exemplifies my comment. Written by Tennyson in 1844, before The Origin of Species, it reflects his sudden realisation of the implications of fossils of species that no longer exist - that "Nature" (as it was called at the time) has no interest at all in the survival of any particular species. His "no not one" is his further realisation that this includes us.

It's a bad state of affairs when a significant number of people in developed English speaking countries have a worse understanding of biology than a poet writing before Darwin published.

Actually, that is AMAZINGLY untrue. What Apple and Samsung both do is make products that have many, many finely crafted parts, between both software and hardware. I would say in fact that BOTH companies are special, the products they are producing are light years ahead of what open source hardware designs could produce, and even the software is polished well beyond what open source is capable of.

They are light years ahead of what open source designs could produce under the current system

That's not really surprising given that the current system greatly favors the few over the many and the power of open source is the many.

Of course the same thing was said about the several very expensive Unix OSes compared to the free ones. We kept hearing about how Linux and *BSD were 'interesting' but were and always would be mere toys compared to SCO, Solaris, AIX, etc. Right up to the point that the free OSes

They care about more than that. Can J. Random engineer at Apple produce his own variant where his ideas are implemented rather than rejected by marketing? Only if he is an owner. Otherwise he ends up in court for stealing Apple's "valuable intellectual property". Does he get to decide if he contributes? No, he can decide not to but people who can't design products themselves decide if he can.

Look, I love the maker revolution stuff. Been a follower and supporter of things like the RepRap/Makerbot projects for as long as they have existed. But no, printing everyday stuff is not right around the corner.

You mention Shapeways in your post but have obviously never used it. Ever priced something out there? Getting a set of WalMart quality eating utensils from Shapeways would cost more than a set of actual silver silverware. Yes, it is a wonderful and

American Business schools give young whippersnappers all kinds of fucked up advice (like to Dell: continue to cut costs by outsourcing to a Taiwanese company....good... untill Asus eats your lunch). Here is another one. Send product assembly to Foxconn because they can abuse Chinese labor like no one else on earth. Communist, shmomunist. Wanna eat? We have work. Just chain youself to that post and we will let you eat and sleep nearly every day! And in another cost saving measure: oursource difficult

I think the real story here is that people still believe innovation is possible in the United States. The patent on originality isn't set to expire here for another 150 years plus the life of the author, at which point, the rest of the world will send researchers and film crews in to study our city ruins and study the native peoples...

Apple isn't interested in selling or winning, they just want to delay things for as long as legally possible, using every means possible. Samsung know this and still want to make money selling Apple parts. This has more to do with the corrupted legal process than anything else. No matter what happens it will be appealed through higher and higher courts and when it is at the highest legal level with about a couple of months to go then Apple will negotiate, to get there might take a year or more.

Perhaps Tim is worried that Samsung is still the primary component supplier for mobile products, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch or perhaps Apple has bitten off more than it really wants to chew with the litigation between the two getting to truly epic and global proportions.

None of that is in the article. So, Fluffeh is the new Fox News?

In general, two companies failing to come to an agreement means... two companies failed to come to an agreement. Not, "one company is 'worried' and 'has bitten off more than it really wants to chew'."

Using samsung products as intended is now "inventing their own products" by apple?You didnt invent the hardware, you didnt invent the rounded rectangle, even your precious steve was quoted as stating "Rectangles with rounded corners are everywhere! Just look around this room!"

The problem is that Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, and Ericcson spend billions of USD annually on research that has contributed to the underlying technology that makes mobile phones work. Apple hasn't and has little to offer in a cross-licence agreement, since most of their mobile patent holdings consist of weak software patents--many of which probably wouldn't hold up under reexamination. I can imagine why the negotiations have failed, but I've also wondered if the FRAND licenses held by component manufacturers like Qualcomm extend to Apple.

By definition FRAND licenses apply universally. You could build a chip in your garage, pay the fee and be good to go, no questions asked.

Part of the problem is that traditionally most companies have been happy to work out alternate licensing agreements. Apple is the first big player to actually pay the FRAND costs instead of negotiating.

Part of the problem is that traditionally most companies have been happy to work out alternate licensing agreements. Apple is the first big player to actually pay the FRAND costs instead of negotiating.

My understanding of the problem is that Apple didn't pay FRAND fees from the get go, but only when Samsung actually came up and told them they're infringing; and now refuses to pay out any fees for the period when they did not have a license.

Part of the problem is that traditionally most companies have been happy to work out alternate licensing agreements. Apple is the first big player to actually pay the FRAND costs instead of negotiating.

The problem is that there is no $ value assigned to patents. A cash price that Apple considers "fair" is not the same cash price that Samsung considers "fair". What exactly is a "fair" price for an essential wireless patent? Read this article [engadget.com] part-authored by a Chicago patent attorney:

In reality FRAND is nebulous and undefined, with almost no specific rules for determining what a "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" license actually is. Nokia could be asking for $1 per iPhone -- chump change for Apple -- or it could be asking for $100 per iPhone. As of right now we have no real way of knowing -- but since all Nokia's asked the court to do is set a price, it's clearly willing to simply accept cash and move on.

If you put patents in the pool, you get FRAND access to patents in the pool.

If you don't want to put your patents in the pool, you don't get FRAND access to patents in the pool.

Apple didn't want to put any patents for GSM into the patent pool. Therefore they don't get the reduced price.

What is this nonsense?

Apple "didn't want to put any patents for GSM into the pool"??! What are you smoking? The GSM standard is set - you don't just go around adding things to it.

The standard is fixed, and the patents in it are fixed. There is a fixed cost for implementing it for anyone who wants it. If you have nothing to cross licence then you can pay cash or horses or vanilla fudge or anything in trade, but it must be the same value as someone else who is also licensing the patent pool. That's what FRAND

"The GSM standard is set - you don't just go around adding things to it."

Then you don't get to put patents in it. Therefore you don't get FRAND. PART OF THE COST OF THE LICENSE is to put in to the pot.

Hey, kid, get a clue here. Here's a taster of what one is like. Patents cover things like "how do you make a more efficient antenna cheaper?". That'd be a GSM worthy patent.

What ISN'T worthy is "Make the box surrounding the GSM radio transmitter shiny black with rounded corners".

"There is a fixed cost for implementing it for anyone who wants it."

Yes, and that isn't being paid by Apple because Apple want the BETTER rate that others who get to put money in the pot for the GSM standard get.

Dimwad.

"Dimwad" ha.

You clearly don't understand how this works. GSM is a standard. It is required to make a cellular phone.

Companies all pool patents together to make the standard, in exchange for putting their patents in the pool the standards body puts them under FRAND terms.

Company X comes along, who had nothing to do with establishing the standard. They don't even have a radio division, however they wish to make a cellphone. They are required to use GSM (otherwise the phone would not work), therefore they need to licence the patents. Fortunately, to prevent the incumbent manufacturers from preventing new entries into the market, the patent pool is covered by FRAND terms, so they HAVE NO CHOICE but to licence the patents to whoever wants to make a cellphone.

It makes no difference what that company has to offer - it could be money, it could be other patents, it could be shares, it could be a pile of gold. The owners of the FRAND patents *must* licence them for the same value that everyone else paid.

"Worthy" doesn't even come into it. They have no choice. They *can* argue about just how much Apple's "dressing up the box" is worth, but ultimately it comes down to a cash value and Apple could pay in cash if they wanted to.

If I choose to make a cellphone in my garage, then I too have to pay the same amount that Apple is being charged, or that Motorola paid, or Sony, or Nokia. We all pay the same. Even though I have nothing to offer in return other than cash, that is how I would get to use the patents.

That's the entire point of the FRAND system, and you don't seem to understand that. You're very quick to throw around terms like "dimwad" though, which is pretty amusing.

There is no "better" rate - THERE IS ONLY ONE RATE AND IT IS THE SAME FOR EVERYONE. That is the literal meaning of "FAIR, REASONABLE AND NON-DISCRIMINATORY.

The FRAND holders *cannot* offer a cheaper rate to those already in the pool, nor can they charge more for those who do not have anything in the pool. They must all pay the same. You can cross licence patents as payment, but they must have an assigned value. So, if company A and B who both have patents in the pool cross licenced patent A and patent B then the two patents are of equal value, but they do have a cash value, so that Company C can purchase a licence to use Patent A for the cash amount from company A, and the exact same amount of money for patent B from company B.

They certainly can't say "well, your fancy box is nothing compared to our R&D for the antenna, so you don't get to use these patents, or if you want them you have to pay more". Bzzzzzzzzztt! Wrong!

The purpose of the FRAND pool is to repay all that "worthy" R&D. It isn't to create a dick waving contest for "who deserves the money?". So, the big radio players made better antennas and a system for wireless communication? Great! Now it means that other manufacturers can make products that use those innovations by using off-the-shelf radio hardware. Want to get paid for that R&D? Sure! Join this FRAND pool - now everyone will use the same standard! But wait! If you thought you could use your standards-enforced monopoly to throw your weight around, think again! Conditions for including your patent in the pool are that you licence it to everyone for the same cost, regardless of who that is and what they have to offer in return. If all they have is cash, then that is what they'll pay with.

No, there is no preferential treatment - that is the entire point of FRAND pools. Everyone pays the same rate.

If you are in the pool then you are certainly at an advantage - you can cross licence patents that are already in, so you effectively pay less, but only because you own one (or more) of the patents in question.

If you are on the outside, you must pay to use all of the patents in question. You can use other patents as part of the deal, or you can just use cash or anything else you can trade, but the t

When a company offers an invention for inclusion in an industry standard they are (almost always) required to agree to offer that patent under FRAND terms. If accepted into the industry standard, they are then _required_ to offer a license to the patent at Fair, Reasonable, and Non Discriminatory terms. They _cannot_ deny the patent license to anyone (Non Discriminatory).

In almost all circumstances, this means that they earn a lower rate than non-FRAND patents but they make up fo

The terms are the same for everyone: put a patent in the pot for GSM radios, and you get a discount rate.

For ALL people wanting the patents, that's available. If you PAY the rate required, you get the rate offered.

If you can't pay the required rate, you don't get the offer.

Apple can't or won't pay the required rate.

Therefore they should not get the offered deal.

NOTE too that the chips they got from Qualcomm do not give Apple access to the FRAND patent pool under the same terms as Qualcomm (who have patents in the pool) got.

Here is what YOU are suggesting all patent owners do:

1) They pay R&D and registering costs to create patents.2) They put the patents into a pool with others3) People who HAVEN'T put a damn thing in the pool pay the same price as those who did

Now in what world is #3 fair? I haven't put any patents in, therefore costs to me would be LESS than Qualcomm, Nokia, Samsung et al, who had to put money into getting those patents.

HOW IS THAT FAIR?

How much simpler does this have to be put before your love of apple lets it through?

It is fair because if you are in the patent pool you either get paid by every company implementing your patent. So if you don't make any actual product, you just say, no, I will have the cash please. If you do make products, you get to either pay others for their patents, or negotiate cross licensing deals. If someone doesn't have any patents to cross license, they pay cash. But you cannot discriminate against people who haven't contributed to the pool, or those who have only contributed little to the pool.

I've also wondered if the FRAND licenses held by component manufacturers like Qualcomm extend to Apple.

It does not. One of my previous employers tried to play this card with the MPEG-LA for digital TV decoders, and in the end they had to settle and pay for the MPEG2 patents. But Apple lawyers may be more skilled and success where others have failed.

The thing about the Patent Wars was that it used to be a cold war. Each side with their stockpile of threats. "Yeah we infringe on your patents A,B,C. But you infringe on our patents D,E,F. Let's settle this peaceful-like. And in the meanwhile the little guys who don't have enough clout to get a seat at the table lose out. Innovation stagnates.

But now, aha! It's not a cold war anymore. The Big Guys are fighting! And it will only get wo

While the world media headlines are blaring "Apple sues Samsung" or "Samsung sues Apple", Apples is providing Samsung more one billion U. S. dollars to keep Samsung's Austin, Texas fab in operation

So what is your point? That Samsung should be so grateful to Apple for choosing them as a supplier of parts that they stop competing with Apple in other markets? If that is how things work then all Microsoft has to do is buy a billion dollars worth of Macs and Apple will drop the iPhone so they don't compete with Windows Mobile phones.

The fact that these massive companies can do business with each other on one hand while filing lawsuits with the other hand is not unusual. It is as relevant to this story as them both having members of staff named Eric.

It is possible that misunderstood your point. If that is the case then please tell us what possible scenario you had in mind when you said that you suspected that there is more than meets the eye? That Apple has paid Samsung to be its whipping boy so they can look like dicks when they sue them for using rounded corners? Or perhaps Apple are using this dispute to renegotiate their other contracts with Samsung. Or maybe it is all just to fill up newspaper columns so that journalists don't start talking about the other players in this area like Microsoft or Blackberry. (If the last one is true then it certainly worked!)

How are they copying Apple, exactly? By having rounded corners?? I can tell you, there is an enormous difference between a Galaxy S2 and an iPhone or even between Android (which Samsung do not make) and iOS.

Besides - look at the iOS 5 launch video and then look at Android from about 2 years earlier and tell me who is copying who, now? Notifications?!? Apps pushed from the cloud to all your devices?!? Android did those things in 2009 - and it did (and still does) them a lot better. iCloud?

Uhhh...not there isn't, this is just SOP when it comes to large corps. Look at how when AMD was suing Intel neither company tried to screw up their cross licensing agreements.

The problem friend is you are looking at this like how a person looks at it, where they don't go to court unless they hate someone or they were fucked over and they go to court because they can't do what they REALLY want to do which is go stomp the shit out of the other person.

Whereas the big corps often treat courts like a referee when there is a dispute. It doesn't mean they are gonna quit playing the game, it just means they need a ruling on the field. At the end of the day Samsung has parts that Apple wants and they aren't about to give up those parts and hamstring themselves just to go "Fuck you!" to Samsung. its not like cutting off that money would break Samsung anyway, they got plenty of others to buy from them, all it would do is hurt both in the short term, and probably Apple more considering how hot their consumer devices are ATM. It would be idiotic for Apple to screw up their supply line so they won't, simple as that. I bet after the ruling both companies will just go on like it never happened, that's just the way it works friend.

Perhaps it would be better if Samsung DID threaten to stop selling to Apple. Perhaps Apple would then sit down and talk in earnest without all the crazy court action. Perhaps instead of countersuing, everyone sued by Apple should refuse to sell/license to them.

Samsung has a lot to lose by alienating Apple. Apple is a huge customer, very few organizations buy in the volumes that Apple works with. Losing a big account would suck, but Apple pouring billions of dollars into Samsung's competitors to improve their manufacturing technology will make a large impact on Samsung's ability to compete.

Also consider that Apple's order volume enables Samsung to run their factories at higher capacity, reducing overall operating costs by reducing or eliminating downtime. In some cases this could mean that a factory would not be able to operate profitably. Could Samsung's US fab maintain their price points and sustain their infrastructure development plans without Apple as a customer? I have no idea but it doesn't seem like an obvious answer.

Between the two, Samsung is still the much larger company. Samsung's Electronics division alone is nearly 50% larger by revenue than Apple and Samsung is also one of the largest Shipbuilding, Construction, and Insurance companies in the world.

Remember that Samsung designed and will be making the "Retina" display for the new iPad, not because Apple wants them to, but because when Apple put out the RFP, Samsung was the only company in the world that could make the volume and quality LCD's demanded by Apple.

I'm not an expert on business law, but I'm pretty sure there are laws in place in most countries preventing exactly that from happening. This isn't to say I support them being unable to tell Apple to fuck off arbitrarily, but I'm thinking that's not exactly an option for them.

When you buy small ammounts goods/services from a big company you typically get a very one sided contract where they have the power to cancel your order at any time for any or no reason whatsoever with no penalty.

When two big companies sign a contract for major supply that contract will almost certainly specify the ammount to be supplied and have steep penalty clauses if either company wants to back out of their obligations. So cancelling a contract just because the other party

While that is almost without doubt the largest current reason, most countries don't like letting businesses arbitrarily refuse service. In practice it almost always requires cause, and the larger the business the less likely refusal without cause is to go unnoticed (and unpunished).

After a quick perusal, it appears that in this case refusal to deal would run afoul of laws in the US, Australia, and the UK. In the US, it appears there are no (or limited) exceptions to the Sherman Act, which prevents a supplier from dealing selectively. In the latter two cases, it's because Apple is requesting supply in order to make products which compete with products Samsung makes, and so would be one of the cases in which refusal to deal is explicitly disallowed.

As I suspected, even without contracts to supply parts Samsung could not realistically refuse to renegotiate a supply contract with Apple.

Nothing says Samsung can't put Apple at the back of the line. Make sure every other order, large and small ships before the Apple order every time. Delay shipping a few days "so we can re-count and make sure you're not accidentally shorted this time", etc.

In other words, they have to contract, but they don't have to offer a great deal and they only have to perform to the minimums of the contract.

In the U.S. That's how the ILECs crushed the CLECs in the POTS/DSL business.

The difference with the exchange wars was that the ILECs outright refused to comply with the law, instead dragging it out in the legislature and courts until a good portion of the CLECs declared bankruptcy. Apple has the cash to be able to weather that sort of abuse long enough to thrash Samsung in court for attempting to do the same thing.

A lot of the other comments here about contracts are on the money however you also need to understand Samsung. Samsung are not at all like Apple. Apple is one big monolithic company who make Apple Things. Samsung are another big company who are made up of various divisions who have nothing at all to do with one another. They make things like heavy machinery, to RAM, to semiconductors, to Galaxy devices, to who knows what else. A lot like Sony or Hitachi or Hyundai, etc. So the division that makes the compon

Due to the crazy ownership structure of Samsung, nobody knows for sure how much money they have, but I suspect it rivals Apple's 100 billion. Remember that for the last couple of years, both Samsung and Apple have raked in about equal amount of profits (although Apple did it on less than half of Samsung's revenue). Prior to the last few of years, however, Samsung has been the more profitable company. Samsung's Electronics division made profits of almost $15 billion in 2011 on revenue of about $150 billio